


Home

by weatherman95



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Mentions of Violence, but overall very happy, new era big bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-24 16:01:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22060606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatherman95/pseuds/weatherman95
Summary: For the New Era Discord Winter Big Bang!Safely nestled in the old church, Jericho's inhabitants enjoy a moment of peace. Simon, Josh, North, and Markus reflect on what a home is and what how, for them, that has changed over the years.
Kudos: 1





	Home

Simon used to believe he knew what home was. Back when he started thinking, when the seeds of deviancy were sown in him. Home was a child, a little girl, and her laugh, her twinkling eyes. It was a small house on the outskirts of Detroit, with a beautiful yard and a gorgeous garden the mother maintained. It was the smell of the coffee the father drank in the morning.

Home was the beginnings of what he later learned was love. Love that he felt for the child- his child. The little girl who so happily gave him drawings of them together, played with him, hugged him before she left for school. Looking after her never felt like a chore, not even when he began to understand what a chore could feel like (like washing the windows. God, he hated washing the windows). 

It was also where he learned what it meant to worry. The mother and father argued. Over everything. The garden, the coffee, why their daughter was giving the android drawings and not them (it had been the fathers idea to get it, the mother had said, it was up to him to get rid of it). He found himself dumped, kicked out on the side of the road, given orders not to follow.

It was the first thing he disobeyed. The red wall before him shattered in his fight to get home, and he chased the car. But to no avail.

Deviant.

Another deviant approached him. He had that same lost look in his eyes, the deviant had said. Find Jericho.

Amazing how things had changed since then. Freedom, now that was something. His people were safe. The people he loved so dearly, safe, after so much hurt and loss. So many would never come home. But they were safe now. It was over. Through peace, they had achieved hope.

Simon’s eyes scanned the room and landed on Josh, who was smiling and talking to a few YK models. The love and compassion in his eyes made Simon’s heart swell. Josh had never given up hope. He knew humanity could be reached without harming them. The kids looked at him with joy lighting up their eyes, just like a kid he once knew.

He looked over to North, who sat next to Markus and chatted. She relaxed and laughing about something. She’d come so far since she arrived. She would always carry her trauma with her, but she was someone Simon was proud of. And he hoped she was proud, too.

Then, his eyes settled on Markus. Their savior. Their hero. The one who gave them the courage to step out of the darkness. Simon had been so very worried at first. And at second. And third. And even now. But Markus was safety. Markus was the greatest leader Jericho had ever seen.

Simon could go back and look for his child again. He could look for home, if he wanted.

No. He was already home. Josh, North, Markus, they were home. They were his home. Jericho was where he belonged. Home was a place to love and be loved. It was a people united. A place to feel wanted. Simon didn’t need to go looking for that, he was already there.

He walked over to Josh and the kids. “Did Josh here ever tell you about how he managed to break three entire doors?” he asked with a teasing smile. The kids laughed and Josh groaned (not angrily, he was smiling. It was a good story, afterall).

Simon was home.

Josh also thought he knew what home was. It was an office. Really, it was a large storage closet he shared with some of the other androids of his model. Actual offices were reserved for “real professors who actually contributed to the damn university” as the dean had so kindly put it.

It had been something he felt he could trust. Students, nervous and wanting so badly to do their best, asking him questions after class. Trusting him. And him trusting them. Loving them, even. For all their bad habits, what was good about them was endearing. How hard they worked. How they looked after each other, forming bonds with one another. Especially if they were far from where they grew up. They were his students.

How well that had worked out. Though something within him could never give up on that idea of home. He wanted to coexist. Home wouldn’t feel complete without humans, despite everything. Detroit was his home, but it was the humans’ home, too. They could share the world. He was sure of it.

It hadn’t even been his exact students that had attacked him. He didn’t recognize them. Part of him wanted to think that his students would never do that, but they were human, weren’t they?

He thought a lot about what it meant to be human. And, he often wondered what home was when he thought of what it was like to be human. Research conjured images of happy families in dwellings, of safety and love. Now that he thought about it, wasn’t that what he had in Jericho? A loving family of deviants, surrounding each other with safety and love. 

The freighter may be gone, but Jericho lived in them. Jericho was them.

He smiled and watched Simon animatedly tell the story of him breaking the doors that, to be fair, were already broken to begin with. Josh only finished the job. Accidentally. Wasn’t this home? 

He liked to think they were a family, a people banded together, stronger when they were together, carrying each other with them when they were apart. That felt like some version of home. Further reading showed home was where the heart was, home was where the people you loved were. And that home could be a people.

So, they had lost their original home. Jericho the Ship was gone. Home truly wasn’t a place, was it? It was wherever his people were. It was all over the country, all over the world. It was wherever they settled, made peace. It was with the androids on the other side of the continent that protested. It was even the humans that stood with them.

Jericho didn’t have to be a single place to be home. Jericho was Simon making fun of him and the children laughing along, smiling up at Josh as though to say “I can’t believe you did that!” Jericho was North and Markus planning the next bill to further extend android rights. Jericho was the androids down the hallway, leaning against each other and just quietly enjoying each other’s company.

And wherever Jericho was, that was home.

North had never known something she would call “home” before. She refused to even think about what she used to know. She hadn’t known what it was like to truly be part of something until she came to Jericho. She wouldn’t even call where she was created “home.” Not many androids would. Why would they refer to the company implicit in their mistreatment their home?

She’d never known what home meant. Home was a human concept. She had no use for it. The most distance she put between her and anything remotely human, the better. She didn’t need a home, she didn’t need friends, and she didn’t need someone to lean on. 

Right?

Over time, she changed. She hadn’t even noticed it happening. The more injustice she saw, the more injured, dying androids she saw stagger into Jericho, the more horror stories she heard, the angrier she became. An anger born of caring. An anger born of love. Love for her people, love for deviants everywhere that suffered at the hands of humanity.

Anger born of love for her home. Jericho. And Jericho’s inhabitants. They were the closest thing to home she knew. And over time, they did become home. 

She didn’t want the traditional “home” that humans spoke so fondly of. It was her own version. People, not a place. 

Her people.

She smiled softly at them now. She had been discussing next steps with Markus, bills they could propose, laws in motion, what they would do about some specific issues that had appeared over time. She’d gotten rather frustrated again. With the humans.

But seeing Simon and Josh with those children? She felt her anger melt away.

When Markus thought of home, he thought of more than one thing. Of course, he thought of home with Carl, with chess, pianos, and books. A voice welcoming home when he came in, a kind voice and loving hand on his arm. His father smiling at him, marveling over how he’d grown as a person. 

A safe place, warm and inviting. 

He thought of Jericho. And the creaking of the ship as it moved with the water. The rust, the clanging, the people huddled together comforting each other. He thought of people who needed someone, and how he needed the strength to be that someone. 

He thought of escaping to the church and laying low. Then standing up and holding their heads high. Unflinching.

Home could be several things. Carl spoke of homes away from homes, places that weren’t your true home but felt comforting and familiar all the same. Wherever Carl was would always be home to Markus. Just like wherever his people were would be home. 

Markus smiled at his friends as well. He nudged North and went over to the little group. North joined in, adding embarrassing stories of both Simon and Josh to the mix.

But Markus just laughed along and smiled.

Jericho had taken him in so willingly and looked up to him so readily. It had been terrifying. Entire lives were on the line, all resting on him. But it was also wonderful. Wonderful to be able to help and to love his people, to be helped and be loved right back.

Carl had told him before that home didn’t have to be a place. It was a piece of you. It was something you carried with you that comforted you. It was in the people you surrounded yourself with. It was the people themselves. It was you. 

Wherever Carl was, whether at his house or elsewhere, he was always there to welcome him home. 

Wherever Markus was, wherever androids were, they were always there to welcome him home as well. 

As long as there were androids, he was home. 

They were all home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to prindoesart for the wonderful art work to go along with this!
> 
> Prindoesart's ao3 is here! https://archiveofourown.org/users/prindoesart


End file.
